May 5, 2010

BP and its employees have given more than $3.5 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years, with the largest chunk of their money going to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Donations come from a mix of employees and the company’s political action committees — $2.89 million flowed to campaigns from BP-related PACs and about $638,000 came from individuals.

On top of that, the oil giant has spent millions each year on lobbying — including $15.9 million last year alone — as it has tried to influence energy policy.

During his time in the Senate and while running for president, Obama received a total of $77,051 from the oil giant and is the top recipient of BP PAC and individual money over the past 20 years....

Eh. What's $77,051 to Obama? According to his spokesperson, he didn't take any money from corporate PACs when he was running for President. That actually makes the $77,051 more significant. He got it in earlier stages of his political career and, as they say, "Early money is like yeast, because it helps to raise the dough." Still... I find it hard to believe that $77,051, even adjusted for earliness, means anything to Obama.

Depends on what you mean by "mean anything;" that it would change his view of BP - no. It is an exercise in futility for the big corporations to try to curry favor with Obama himself, but it no doubt has effects with others within the Administration.

Was Obama late on this? Yes. Would it have made a difference in real terms had he been "right on it". Highly unlikely. This is an engineering challenge and unless Obama has gained a sudden understanding of fluid dynamics at pressures of a mile down in the ocean, there isn't a whole lot he could have done other than looking indifferent.

(The same applies to Bush and Katrina. The fact is that the Coast Guard was in place and acted promptly with Katrina. Beyond that, there was little Bush could have done in real terms.)

The Bush administration (and yes, specifically including FEMA) actually did do more to send disaster help to New Orleans than had ever been done beforefor any such emergency, and the effort began as soon as it was clear that Katrina was going to strike the city - well before the actual landfall.

Whether it was enough may be debated, but that they did not prepare at all and did nothing until well after is an "urban myth" manufactured by the MSM.

Leave it to Drudge to blow things out of proportion. Not quite a lie, but not quite the truth, his stock in trade.Believe me, GMay, Dubya took more than just that from the oil dudes, millions and millions.

Let's say that Obama is "BP's man", as Nusseinam says. Or as Drudge implies. What has he done for them? And how would the Feds not responding effectively to this oil spill help BP? Further, is BP all of a sudden "bad" now to the drill baby drill crowd out there?

Obama's three times as deep in the pocket of Big Nucular, as W. would call it.

Isn't Drudge being a tad bit disingenuous when he talks about contributions from the donor's point of view? I mean Mitt Romney is the top recipient of FLS cash over the past 20 years, but I sent him only $10. I don't think the Mitter's gonna bust his ass to help me out.

BP is well, well, well down the list of affiliations of Obama's contributors. Goldman Sachs is the group you gotta keep your eyes on. Them and the University of California.

It's not whether Obama remembered it or not -- it's the access the contributions imply, because the contributors will remind Emanuel or someone else and get access.

But it's probably not a big deal, as politicians get contributions from both sides of the issues, as both sides try to buy access.

Open Secrets has the stats. Energy and notes that Obama has received $2.7 million from energy-related contributors. He's received $25 million from communications and electronics contributors (remember he proposed a high-speed internet plan and net neutrality is now an issue on his horizon), and that's not even the biggest sector.

On the other hand, when considering the effect of campaign contributions -- long the bane of existence for McCain/Feingold types -- consider this: Obama has gotten nearly a million bucks from Goldman Sachs.

Daniel said... "Let's say that Obama is "BP's man", as Nusseinam says. Or as Drudge implies. What has he done for them?"

maybe this: "The Interior Department exempted BP's calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental impact analysis last year, according to government documents, after three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely. " (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2010/05/04/ST2010050405322.html?sid=ST2010050405322)

While geologically speaking spills were unlikely, there is such thing as human error, which is always likely, and omiting this possibility is next to criminal.

"Let's say that Obama is "BP's man", as Nusseinam says. Or as Drudge implies. What has he done for them?"

Why, his Interior Department has given BP a free ride ... or don't you read the newspaper?

The Washington Post reports that Obama officials in the Interior Department specifically exempted that particular well from an environmental impact statement last year. Seems like BP's money has been well-spent on Barack Obama and his Democrat Party cronies installed over at the Interior Department.

Washington Post:"The Interior Department exempted BP’s calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental impact analysis last year, according to government documents, after three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely."

Erm... unlikely?

So, Barack's friends over at BP are able to skip environmental impact statements everybody who isn't donating to Barack Obama has to provide to the Interior Department.

I wonder ... do Barack Obama's Interior Department lackeys still believe that an oil spill is "unlikely?"

Perhaps if Obama had required his employers at BP to fill out their environmental impact statements, we could have made the appropriate conclusion that this well presented a potential hazard.

$77K might seem small, but someone needs to work out the ratio of how much taxpayer money a politician is willing to spend/waste/give to special interests in order to secure a dollar of campaign contributions. And you have it exactly wrong, Hagar. There's more than enough evidence of how comfortable big government and big business are in the same bed. It's the small businessman that need not apply - the middle class, the bourgeoisie, the false consciousness set.

If the contributions didn't accomplish anything, BP would not have given them. Maybe they did here or not, but in general, they either work or there is a lot of money being wasted and a lot of hay being made about nothing by all sides. I expect access is very valuable ad never free.

You know who is heavily invested in offshore drilling? George Soros. In fact, this is a major reason he's opposed to competition and funds ad campaigns against the practice in places his Brazillian interests do not plan to explore, while producing ad campaigns saying the exact opposite in places where he will make billions drilling for oil.

He's not opposed to drilling because of the environment, but because he is attempting to manipulate economic activity on a massive scale. Is he just trying to get richer, or trying to bolster more competitors to US hegenomy? I don't really care. He's a scumbag, and so is his little toy, Obama, who probably had no idea he got cash from oil drillers.

That's why he's so confused when he's off script. He's dimly aware that he's said a bunch of shit that he doesn't agree with. All those chimpy* jokes directed at Bush were absurd: Bush knew what he was doing and if he was flawed it was a real flaw. Obama is the bumbling buffoon.

Under normal circumstances big government and big business are indeed comfortable in the same bed. Sometimes, however, big business supports big government in what they think are their common interests, and then wake up to find that big government has been taken over by folks with a different set of interests.

"How about British Petroleum? Its top-three all-time recipients in contributions since 1990 are Representative Don Young of Alaska, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, and Bush (uh, could that have anything to do with drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?). But look now who’s doing the drilling. The number two recipient in the current cycle is Obama at $10,196, more than double what BP has given to Stevens."

Hussein and Nora, let me see if I have the theory down. Obama gets $77k from BP over 20 years. Two months after he arrives in office, the Interior Department releases a decision exempting the well. Following your theory, this process for this decision happened not only under Obama's watch, but was made by people Obama put in place with the express intention of making BP-beneficial decisions. Further, the decision was perverted by Obama's people, and was not made on the basis of the three reviews conducted showing that a spill was unlikely. Or, alternatively, those reviews, were also conducted by Obama people, also during the two months that Obama had been in office, and Obama told them what to write in the reports, overriding their concerns. Got it. Spot on. Where's Elvis?

Hussein, if lightning hit the tree right next to you, would that invalidate three reviews from last week suggesting that lightning hitting that tree was unlikely?

Until Barack Obama's cronies in the Department of the Interior stopped requiring environmental impact statements from their favored donors.

If the Obama Administration would just follow the law and require environmental impact statements, instead of giving exceptions out to those willing to pay bribe money - er, rather "campaign donations" - then it would be even more safe to drill in the Gulf of Mexico.

But it's clear that Obama puts his bribe money ahead of the nation's environmental concerns.

Shame on liberals for supporting Obama, who it appears is just as evil as Dick Cheney and Haliburton.

Why not support Hillary? You didn't have oil company donors dumping all over our coastlines in the Clinton Administration.

Liberals who support Obama rather than Clinton have some explaining to do about why they support someone who is taking oil money and turning away while environmental risks by huge oil conglomerates are going unchecked.

Nice rebuttal, Jeremy. I see you've included your usual fact-based commentary. Oh wait ... your rebuttal is full only of name-calling and cites no factual basis for your argument.

If anyone is full of shit, it's the Washington Post, which reported that Barack Obama's cronies in the Interior Department specifically excluded this particular oil well from having to file an environmental impact statement on the asinine theory that an oil spill from this well was impossible.

Your beef - Jeremy - would seem to me would be with the Washington Post. Since they are reporting these facts. And your beef is with Barack Obama, who had his appointees in the Interior Department specifically exclude this particular BP well from having to file an environmental impact statement that would have exposed the unsafe way this well would be operated by Obama's campaign donors.

Now ABCNews is reporting that Department of the Interior Chief of Staff Tom Strickland decided not to go to the Gulf to handle the Interior Department response to the worst ecological disaster America has faced since the Exxon Valdez.

Instead, the top man at the Interior Department left for vacation ... taking his wife to the Grand Canyon.

ABCNews: "Though his agency was charged with coordinating the federal response to the major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Department of the Interior chief of staff Tom Strickland was in the Grand Canyon with his wife last week participating in activities that included white-water rafting, ABC News has learned."

It's pretty clear that major news outlets such as the Washington Post and ABCNews are not advancing administration spin on this story.

Reputable ews organizations are uncovering massive incompetence in the Obama Administration response to this ecological disaster on their watch, and disvoering ties to campaign donations might be the reason why Barack Obama isn't taking the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico by one of his largest campaign donors seriously.

His top man went on vacation for Chrisstakes?

But, I guess Jeremy will tell us that ABCNews is full of shit and we should just ignore this.

ABCNews and the Washington Post both confirm that the Administration of Barack Obama allowed one of his major campaign donors to be exempted from having to file required environmental impact statements on the asinine theory that their oil well could never leak.

Neither ABCNews, nor the Washington Post, think much of your argument Daniel. They believe it's wrong for Presidential bribers to be exempt from the laws everyone else has to follow and that they shouldn't be exempted by Obama officials from having to file environmental impact statements on their rickety oil platforms.

Maybe you should call up Ben Bradlee and harangue him.

Both you and Jeremey are Obama ass-kissers who can't see your way to criticize Barack Obama when Barack Obama is acting worse than Dick Cheney by allowing his oil buddies to dump their oil into our beautiful Gulf of Mexico without even so much as a boilerplate environmental impact statement required of them.

Barack Obama should be ashamed of himself. He's sold out the Gulf of Mexico for $77,000 over 20 years.

Daniel, I think New Ham addressed your argument and you are the one repeating a question already answered. Your link only exacerbates the point since BP never should have been exempted from any requirements after what your link claims.

You are such a dumb f...g shithead that the free speech amendment should not apply to you. There should be a garbage collector waiting outside your mouth....and I suspect a lot on this blog think the same.

"You are such a dumb f...g shithead that the free speech amendment should not apply to you. There should be a garbage collector waiting outside your mouth....and I suspect a lot on this blog think the same."

Lesson in brevity: You could have saved time and bandwidth by typing "I have nothing intelligent to say".